NTPC, a maharatna company, will spend Rs.4.6 crore on conservation of Olive Ridley turtles all along the nine coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh.
Taken up under its corporate social responsibility initiative, NTPC Simhadri Super Thermal Power Station Group General Manager P.K. Bondriya told The Hindu on Monday the programme was being launched on a massive scale. The MoU with the Forest Department was signed in April.
He said they would release the remaining amount during next four years. Olive Ridley turtles, facing the threat of extinction, come to Andhra Pradesh and Odisha for mass nesting.
Their number is dwindling due to poaching, prey by dogs and failure to use turtle excluder device by trawlers.
The turtles are listed in Schedule I category in the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 (amended in 1991) and figure in Red Data Book of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Mr. Bondriya said the project would include inventory mapping of breeding sites, identification of nesting and breeding habitats along the shoreline and migratory routes, development of guidelines to safeguard and minimise turtle mortality, development of local and national cooperative and collaborative action for conservation and growth.
He said the Simhadri Station, ranked 12th in performance with Plant Load Factor of 83.84 per cent during April-October 2016 and 84 per cent last year among 20 power stations of NTPC, was committed to environmental protection.
Mr. Bondriya said they had planted over 10 lakh trees and raised 3.9 lakh trees under the Green Visakha Programme.
The company signed MoU to plant five lakh trees out of which 3.5 lakh would be planted in Visakhapatnam.
He said the NTPC Simhadri was implementing CSR work as a responsible corporate enterprise under various schemes of health, sanitation, education and drinking water.
With team spirit, their thrust this year was on reducing cost of power generation and serving the society better .
